Indian Literature

Huston Smith reading (handout courtesy of Lisa Haney at Athenian)

Key terms

The Four Wants of Man

Kama: pleasure

Artha: success

Dharma: duty

Moksha: release

The Four Yogas

Jnana: the way to God though knowledge

Bhakti: the way to God through love

Karma: the way to God through work

Raja: the way to God through psychological exercises

The Four Stages of Life

Student: beginning from age 8-12, lasting 12 years, character education

Householder: satisfies three of the human wants: pleasure, success, duty

Retirement: withdraws from social obligations, finds meaning in the mystery of existence

Sannyasin: “one how neither hates or loves anything”

The Four Stations of Life

Brahmins: intellectuals, spiritual leaders, philosophers, artists, teachers

Kshatriyas: administrators, the regal and warrior caste

Vaisya: trading and agricultural caste, producers, artisans, farmers

Sudra: followers or servants

Dalits: untouchables

* * *

Atman—soul or inner spirit that is the microcosm of Brahman (sanskrit of God), or the whole, which is itself in a state of constant creation and destruction—as the “self”, which is at once everything and no-thing.

Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva—triple deities representing, creation, preservation, and destruction (a cycle also symbolized by the sounds “a-u-m”)

Maya—the material, sensual ephemeral and ultimately illusory world to which desires and mental categories become fixed or “attached”

Reincarnation—one’s next life as a stage where particular attachments from former lives are worked on and hopefully purged

Karma--one’s destiny, the result of past lives and past errors or virtues

Dharma—duty, one’s karmic social role and duty to be fulfilled in this lifetime

Moksha—release from worldly attachments of separation, release from maya

Yuga—an age of the world. Four in number—Krita (Vishnu), Treta (Rama), Swapara (Sauti and Saunaka), Kali (the present day)--each with decreasing dharma, resulting in degradation in social, moral order

Overview of periods of Indian literature

Vedic period: coincides with invasion of Aryans, last 1,000 years (1500 B.C.E-500 B.C.E)

Major Texts--Rig Veda, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Sutras

Classical period: 500 BCE to 1^st C. AD

Major texts—The Mahabharata, section of the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana